Role of site-specific promoter hypomethylation in aberrant MUC2 mucin expression in mucinous gastric carcinomas

In the present work we investigated the methylation levels of mucin gene (MUC)2 promoter region in normal gastric mucosa and mucinous gastric carcinoma in order to access if the observed de novo expression of the intestinal mucin MUC2 in mucinous gastric carcinoma is associated with changes in MUC2 promoter methylation status. The results obtained by methylation-sensitive single nucleotide primer extension suggest that MUC2 expression in gastric cells is regulated by promoter methylation and further indicate that two specific cytosine guaine dinucleotide (CpG) sites may play a particularly important regulatory role. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.